Julia
Describing the five-to-five-thirty slot at Linda’s house as chaotic was like describing a tornado as a slight breeze. It was difficult to count the number of kids present, because they never stopped moving and most of them seemed to be twins, but I thought there must be at least twelve. They ranged from boys and girls in school uniforms to a baby in a bouncer, who glared at us when we came into the kitchen. I sat down at a dining table covered in bowls of congealed shepherd’s pie. It had been a long time since I had eaten. If Linda hadn’t been swooping in and out I would have clawed up the leftover food with my fingers. Molly went into the garden and started telling a younger girl how to hula-hoop. The doorbell seemed to ring every few seconds, and with each ring Linda scooped up a different kid and returned them to their parent. She smiled at me whenever she came in, and gave me a look that said, “Isn’t this crazy? Isn’t this mad? Me, Linda, in charge of all these kids!”
By five forty-five the crowd had thinned. “Phew,” she said. “Sorry. It’s the busiest time of the day.”
“When are the others getting picked up?” I asked.
“Who?” she asked. I looked into the garden at the kids around Molly: a toddler, twin girls, and an older boy.
“Oh,” she said. “They’re mine.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah.”
“But there’s four.”
“There’ll be five soon.”
“Really?” I said. I tried not to look at her belly. “When?”
“Not until October. A while to wait.”
“I don’t think I could cope with more than one.”
“No?”
“No.”
It was one of the things I had thought about on the train, during the peace of Molly’s sulk. “Perhaps I could get back here,” I thought. “I could find someone else to sleep with, and start again with a different baby, and not mess things up. I could be better. I could follow what the book says more carefully. I’m good at starting again. It’s the only thing I’m good at.” It had been a cold, deadening thing to think, because I knew it wouldn’t work. If Molly was a gift and no-kid was neutrality, then a not-Molly kid was a curse. I could throw away my life and replace it with a new one over and over again, but it wouldn’t work with her. She wasn’t disposable.
I watched her take off her coat and throw it on the grass. I called for her to bring it to me. She came in scowling. “That girl’s rubbish at hula-hooping,” she said.
“Don’t be rude,” I said.
“It’s just true,” she said.
She lingered for a minute, looking at the bowls on the table.
“Are you all right, sweetie?” Linda asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m actually very very badly hungry.”
“I’ll get you something later,” I said, but Linda was already on her feet.
“You can have some shepherd’s pie, Molly. There’s loads here. It’s still warm.” She looked at me. “Will you have some too?”
I wanted to refuse, but I also wanted to eat. The urges tussled until Linda took two bowls from a cupboard.
“I’ll give you some,” she said. “You can leave it if you don’t want it.”
We ate at the table. I felt like we were two of Linda’s kids. The pie was thick, textured with meat and grainy potato. Molly forked it in until her lips were ringed with orange. Linda cleared away the other bowls, pausing to make an appreciative noise about a kid’s activity every few minutes. Molly finished and went back into the garden.
“I thought you might not still live here,” I said when Linda sat down.
“Oh, yeah, we do,” she said. “Didn’t make sense to move. We got the house after Mam and Da died. Pete lived with us for a bit, but then he went to Africa.”
“Africa?”
“Yeah. He’s a missionary. We’re so proud. He’s doing such good work.”
“Wow,” I said. I wanted to ask whether he still had a wonky foot, and whether he remembered the afternoon I had tried to take him to the alleys, but I thought those probably wouldn’t be helpful things to mention. “I’m sorry about your mam and da.”
“Yeah. They were quite young. Mam wasn’t well for a long time, but it was a shock with Da.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You figure it out. So we got the house, me and Kit. That’s my husband. It made sense to stay. And he did it up. He’s a builder. He put in the French windows and everything. There was a problem with some of the beams. They were weight-bearing or something. So it took ages. But it was really worth it. It’s made the kitchen so much brighter. Because it faces the right direction. I can never actually remember which direction, but it’s the right one. For the sun.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“Church. You know they always had those helpers at Sunday school? Teenagers? We did that. That’s how we met. And then we got married. As soon as we left school.”
“But you were—what—sixteen?”
“We were really ready. We had a lovely wedding. So posh. We had salmon.”
“Yeah?”
“Not even in a tin. In a fish.”
“Wow.”
I wished I had something real to say back—“Salmon in a fish, eh? Good choice. At my wedding we
